The correct answer is fire blight.

• The disease related to apples is known as fire blight.

Key Points

• Fire blight disease:
  • It is a common and very destructive bacterial disease that appears in apples and pears.
  • It is caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora.
  • The disease kills blossoms, fruit, shoots, twigs, branches, and entire apple trees. 
  • The disease appears in the spring when temperatures get above 19⁰ C.
  • Climatic conditions like rain, heavy dew and high humidity favour the infection.

Additional Information

• The red rust disease is a disease of the tea plant in which orange-brown, velvety spots develop on the leaves of infected plants. 
• The tikka disease is a disease of the groundnut plant.
• The green ear disease is a disease of the pearl millet.

The correct answer is Anil Kumar Lahoti

Key Points

• Anil Kumar Lahoti​:
  • Anil Kumar Lahoti has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Railway Board.
  • He will be taking over the chairmanship from Vinay Kumar Tripathi on January 1,2023.
  • Lahoti belongs to the 1984 batch of the Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE).
  • His appointment is part of an overhaul of the top management of the railway board.

Additional Information

• Lahoti was appointed as the general manager of Central Railway in July 2021, before which he worked in several key positions in both zonal railways and the railway board in Delhi.
• He reportedly also worked on developing the public-private partnership model for station redevelopment, along with important infrastructural interventions leading to decongestion in stations in Delhi during his tenure with Northern and North Central Railways.
• He will be taking over at a time when the railway board looks to turn things around for the national transporter.
• From earlier being infamous for delayed execution and poor capacity planning, the railways aim to execute more capital expenditure and bettering freight and passenger services in the run-up to the FY24 Budget.

The correct answer is 10^th.

Key Points

• The Tenth Schedule - popularly known as the Anti-Defection Act - was included in the Constitution via the 52nd Amendment Act, of 1985.
• It sets the provisions for disqualification of elected members on the grounds of defection to another political party.
• The anti-defection law punishes individual Members of Parliament (MPs)/MLAs for leaving one party for another.
• It allows a group of MP/MLAs to join (i.e., merge with) another political party without inviting the penalty for defection.
• As per the 1985 Act, a 'defection' by one-third of the elected members of a political party was considered a 'merger'.
• The 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, of 2003, changed this and now at least two-thirds of the members of a party must be in Favour of a "merger" for it to have validity in the eyes of the law.

Additional Information

The correct answer is Karnam Malleswari.

Key Points

• Karnam Malleswari 
  • She is a retired Indian weightlifter.
  • She became the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000. Hence, Option 1 is correct.
  • She also became the first Indian woman to become a weightlifting World Champion in 1994 in Istanbul.
  • Karnam Malleswari is a former woman weightlifter from India.
  • She was born on June 1, 1975, and belongs to Andhra Pradesh.
  • Her first achievement was at Weightlifting Nationals (senior) held at Ambala in 1991, where she won a silver medal.
  • At Sydney Olympics, 2000 she won a bronze medal in weightlifting in the 69kg category.
  • She clinched a gold at the 1994 Asian Games held at Hiroshima.
  • She also fetched gold medals at the 1994 and 1995 World Championships.
  • She has been honoured with Arjuna Award (1994), Rajiv Khel Ratna Award  (1999) and Padma Shri (1999).
  • She is also known as the 'Iron lady of Andhra Pradesh'.

The correct answer is Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

Key Points

• The Servants of India Society was formed in Pune, Maharashtra, on June 12, 1905, by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who left the Deccan Education Society to form this association.
• Along with him were a small group of educated Indians, as Natesh Appaji Dravid, Gopal Krishna Deodhar, Surendra Nath Banerjee, and Anant Patwardhan who wanted to promote social and human development and overthrow the British rule in India.
• The Society organized many campaigns to promote education, sanitation, and health care and fight the social evils of untouchability and discrimination, alcoholism, poverty, oppression of women, and domestic abuse.
• The publication of The Hitavada, the organ of the Society in English from Nagpur commenced in 1911.

Additional Information

• Shyamaji Krishnavarma
  • Shyamaji Krishnavarma, founding father of the India House organization in Highgate, began to supply and edit The Indian Sociologist in January 1905.
  • The Indian Sociologist of September 1908, published in London. Shyamji Krishnavarma edited the journal from 1905 to 1914.
• Dadabhai Naoroji ​
  • Dadabhai Naoroji was also one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress.
  • He presided over the Congress session three times and was a renowned Politician.
  • He wrote a book named 'Poverty and Un-British Rule in India'. It highlighted his 'wealth drain' theory from India to Britain.
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
  • Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer.
  • He rose to prominence as the face of the nationalist movement that opposed British colonial rule in India.
  • As a result, he earned the title "father of his country."
  • Gandhi's philosophy of using nonviolent protest (satyagraha) to advance political and social change has earned him respect on a global scale.
  • Gandhi was regarded as the Mahatma (or "Great Soul") by millions of his fellow Indians.
  • He found it extremely difficult to work during the day or get any rest at night due to the enormous crowds of people that flocked to see him along the routes of his trips.

The correct answer is Vijayalaya.

Key Points

• Vijayalaya was the founder of the Chola dynasty.
• The Chola dynasty was a Tamil dynasty that ruled primarily in southern India until the 13th century.
• The dynasty originated in the fertile valley of the Kaveri River.

Additional Information

• Karikala Chola was the most famous among the early Chola kings, while Rajaraja Chola, Rajendra Chola and Kulothunga Chola I were famous emperors of the medieval Cholas.
• The Cholas were at the height of their power during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.
• Under Rajaraja Chola I (Rajaraja the Great) and his son Rajendra Chola, the dynasty became a military, economic and cultural power in Asia.
• The Chola territories stretched from the islands of the Maldives in the South to as far North as the banks of the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh. Rajaraja Chola conquered peninsular South India, annexed parts of Sri Lanka and occupied the islands of the Maldives.
• Rajendra Chola sent a victorious expedition to North India that touched the river Ganga and defeated the Pala ruler of Pataliputra, Mahipala.
• He also successfully raided the kingdoms of the Malay Archipelago.
• The power of the Cholas declined around the 12th century with the rise of the Pandyas and the Hoysala, eventually coming to an end towards the end of the 13th century. The Cholas left behind a lasting legacy.
• Their patronage of Tamil literature and their zeal for building temples have resulted in some great works of Tamil literature and architecture.
• The Chola kings were avid builders and envisioned the temples in their kingdoms not only as places of worship but also as centres of economic activity. They pioneered a centralised form of government and established a disciplined bureaucracy.

The correct answer is personal tax

Key Points

• Personal Disposal Income = Personal Income - Personal Income tax.
• Personal disposable income can be calculated by subtracting personal income tax payable from personal income (wages, commission, salary).
• Personal Disposable Income refers to the amount of money available to an individual or household to spend or save after income tax and other mandatory taxes have been deducted. 
• It helps economists to measure the savings and spending rates of households.

Additional Information

• A subsidy is a benefit given to an individual, household, or institution by the government usually in order to reduce the beneficiary's expense.
• Rent is referred to as the part of the produce which is paid to the owner of land for the use of his goods and services.
• Wages are the remunerations that a person gets in return for the service provided by him.

The correct answer is GDP - Depreciation.

Key Points

• Net domestic product (NDP) is an annual measure of the economic output of a nation that is adjusted as per the depreciation effect.
• The NDP is calculated by subtracting depreciation from the gross domestic product (GDP).
• An increased NDP indicates growth in economic health, while a decrease would indicate a slowdown of the economy of the country.
• Depreciation is the measure of the decreased monetary value of an asset over time due to use, wear and tear, or obsolescence.

Additional Information

Gross National Income (GNI)

• Gross National Income (GNI) is the total amount of money earned by a nation's people and businesses.
• It is used to measure and track a nation's wealth from year to year.
• The number is calculated using the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) plus the income it receives from abroad.
• India GNI per capita for 2020 was $1,900.

Net National Product (NNP)

• Net national product (NNP) is the monetary value of finished goods and services produced by a country's citizens, overseas and domestically, in a given period.
• It is the equivalent of the Gross National Product (GNP), the total value of a nation's annual output, minus the depreciation.
• NNP is often examined on an annual basis as a way to measure a nation's success.

The correct answer is II only.

Key Points

• Bharatanatyam is the oldest Indian classical dance and it originated hundreds of years ago in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
  • Hence first statement 1 is incorrect.

• Mohiniyattam is one of the two classical dance forms that originated in Kerala, the other one being Kathakali.​

  • Hence first statement 2 is correct.

Additional Information

• The classical dance forms recognised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Ministry of Culture are:

• Bharatanatyam, from Tamil Nadu.
• Kathak, from Uttar Pradesh.
• Kathakali, from Kerala.
• Kuchipudi, from Andhra Pradesh.
• Odissi, from Odisha.
• Sattriya, from Assam.
• Manipuri, from Manipur.
• Mohiniyattam, from Kerala.

The correct answer is X-rays.

Key Points

X-rays:

• Beyond the UV region of the electromagnetic spectrum lies the X-ray region.
•  X-ray is known for its medical applications.
• It covers wavelengths from about 10^–8 m (10 nm) down to 10^{–13 m} (10^–4 nm).
• One common way to generate X-rays is to bombard a metal target with high-energy electrons.
• X-rays are used as a diagnostic tool in medicine and as a treatment for certain forms of cancer.
• X-rays can damage or destroy living tissues and organisms, care must be taken to avoid unnecessary or overexposure.
• X-rays allow us to see inside the pearl, gleaning detailed information about its origin, type, and value.
• Genuine pearls are formed when molluscs deposit a material called Nacre around a particle inside their shell.
• The nacre has a beautiful lustre that gives pearls much of their intrigue.